A GROUP OF SIX PAINTED POTTERY ENTERTAINERS


Han dynastyIncluding three seated musicians wearing stepped bonnets and two female dancers that accompany a corpulent chanter or balladeer, the surfaces showing traces of white slip, black, carmine and blue pigments. 8in (20.3cm) height of chanter
|Provenance Priestley & Ferraro, London, 30 January 1999 The Oxford University Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art Reports on Thermoluminescence Analysis for test sample 776r15, test sample 776r16 and test sample 776r17, each dated 14 March 1996, are consistent with the dating of this lot.A set of seven entertainers of similar costume and stance performing a 'drum-stepping dance' that includes two dancers, four musicians and a bare-chested chanter, was excavated in 1972 in Zhangwen, Lingbao district, Henan: see Imperial Tombs of China (Wonders, Memphis, Tennessee, 1995), p. 105.